The Nigerian authorities says it’s working with related stakeholders by initiatives such because the Biodiversity Finance Initiative (BIOFIN) and the National Net-Zero Nature-Positive Implementation Plan to join biodiversity priorities with national planning, financing wants and funding alternatives.
Nigeria’s focus to the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), Sikeade Egbuwalo, disclosed this through the nation’s intervention on the Technical-Level Dialogue between Finance and Environment Ministries on the ongoing CBD COP17 negotiations in Armenia.
The dialogue was convened as a part of efforts to implement CBD Decision 16/34 on useful resource mobilisation.
“We recognise the importance of synergies between biodiversity and climate change. However, synergy must not translate into hierarchy,” Mrs Egbuwalo instructed delegates.
She stated built-in approaches ought to strengthen each agendas with out subordinating biodiversity financing to local weather finance.
Nigeria’s BIOFIN programme was launched in late 2025 in partnership with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) to assist shut the nation’s biodiversity financing hole and assist nature conservation and sustainable ecosystem administration.
Nigeria, Africa’s priorities
Since negotiations started final week, biodiversity financing has remained one of the contentious points, significantly for growing nations searching for substantial monetary assist to implement the worldwide biodiversity framework.
Discussions have centered on mobilising extra private and non-private funding, enhancing entry to current sources and redirecting environmentally dangerous subsidies in the direction of actions that assist nature conservation.
A significant challenge is the implementation of the Cali Fund, established following COP16 to assist benefit-sharing from the business use of digital sequence data (DSI) on genetic sources.
The mechanism seeks to be sure that corporations benefiting from the business use of such data contribute to biodiversity conservation and its sustainable use.
For African nations, the talk is carefully linked to fairness, useful resource possession and the continent’s capability to finance conservation.
African negotiators argue that the continent’s wealthy organic sources assist business actions worldwide, whereas the advantages generated from their use don’t adequately attain the nations and communities from which these sources originate.
They are pushing for benefit-sharing preparations that ship tangible monetary sources for biodiversity safety, neighborhood growth and the implementation of national conservation plans.
Negotiators are additionally discussing methods to mobilise personal funding and redirect environmentally dangerous subsidies. The Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework requires not less than $500 billion yearly in dangerous incentives to be eradicated or redirected by 2030.
Nigeria’s intervention and place
During its intervention, Nigeria strongly advocated for facilitating dialogue between Finance and Environment Ministries below paragraph 26(a) of Decision 16/34, citing a elementary hole in how biodiversity is positioned inside national and worldwide monetary decision-making.
“Our central concern is that nature and biodiversity must be accorded the same level of political, institutional and financial priority as climate change,” Mrs Egbuwalo stated.
She argued that local weather change was not a better or extra vital disaster than biodiversity loss, stressing that each had been interconnected, equally pressing and elementary to sustainable growth.
According to her, local weather change has obtained important consideration from finance ministries, national price range authorities, growth banks and worldwide monetary establishments over time, whereas biodiversity has not loved the identical degree of recognition and monetary prioritisation.
“Nature is not a subset of climate change. Biodiversity has its own intrinsic, ecological and economic value. We should not have to justify investments in biodiversity solely on the basis of their contribution to climate mitigation or adaptation,” she stated.
Mrs Egbuwalo stated Nigeria pushed for the dialogue below Decision 16/34 as a result of biodiversity wanted to transfer past the unique duty of Environment Ministries and develop into a core consideration in fiscal insurance policies, national budgets, public funding choices and financial growth planning.
READ ALSO: CBD COP17: Why African countries struggle to mobilise biodiversity funding – AfDB official
She famous that Finance Ministries play a central function in useful resource allocation, fiscal incentives, taxation and funding insurance policies.
Without their energetic engagement, she stated, the formidable commitments below the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework would stay troublesome to implement.
Nigeria additionally maintained that useful resource mobilisation was not solely about producing new financing but additionally about redirecting current monetary flows, reforming incentives dangerous to biodiversity and guaranteeing that national expenditure supported, moderately than undermined, nature.
The nation stated it anticipated the technical dialogue to produce sensible suggestions on institutional collaboration, biodiversity-responsive budgeting, devoted financing devices and stronger engagement by Finance Ministries in implementing National Biodiversity Strategies and Action Plans (NBSAPs).
Mrs Egbuwalo stated Nigeria wished a elementary shift in how governments prioritised local weather and biodiversity financing.
“We cannot continue to treat climate change as an economic priority while biodiversity remains largely an environmental responsibility,” she stated.
She added that nature’s safety deserved equally robust monetary and institutional commitments, expressing hope that the dialogue would transfer governments from recognising the significance of biodiversity to taking concrete motion.
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